


yielding to gravity

by desastrista



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 17:13:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9559115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desastrista/pseuds/desastrista
Summary: By the time that Keith reached the Garrison, he had decided he did not like dreaming. But he meets a certain Takashi Shirogane, and that starts to change.Written for Sheith Unlimited Week, Day 1: Dreamer. Keith's dreams, covering before the series up until the end of season 2.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Timing is probably off for some episode, since it's been a while since I watched. (Clearly that just means another rewatch is in order, right?) 
> 
> This is going to be jossed so hard in Season 3, I can predict this now.

By the time that Keith reached the Garrison, he had decided he did not like dreaming. 

He’d spent a childhood dreaming of the family he never had. He’d created and discarded so many families for himself over the years. When he was four, he had decided in the general way that children do, that his mother and father must have been sweet, kind people who had been forced by bad people to give him up. He dreamt of how much fun his family would have once his parents defeated those evil people and came back for him. But then one day in middle school he pushed a classmate too hard, and the boy yelled about how mean Keith was, and Keith decided that his mother and father were probably mean people too, and that when they came back they’d have all these elaborate plots for revenge that Keith could use on everyone in the school who had ever yelled at him or made rude remarks at his hair or given him a strange look. The revenge would take a long time, but Keith was okay with that. He’d have a lot of time, when his parents came back. 

But the years passed and still Keith’s parents did not show up. Keith decided he’d had enough of these silly childhood fantasies. He did not like dreaming, that was all. A waste of time. He had managed to convince even himself that this was the case by the time he had joined the Garrison. 

But oh the dreams he had after his first time in a cockpit. Dreams of flying all alone in the empty sky, with the earth and all its problems far below him. Dreams of freedom.

The next morning, Keith signed up for every available timeslot for flying lessons that the Garrison would let him. 

And then he met an older student, Takashi Shirogane. Shiro was nice, and generous, and kind, and didn’t talk to Keith like he was an idiot. And he especially did not give him that terrible pitying look that Keith was so familiar with when he heard that Keith was an orphan. 

Shiro showed up in Keith’s dreams a few times. It was an embarrassing thing to admit; he never told Shiro. They kept hanging out. They didn't have any classes together, but they kept finding ways to meet. They'd train together. Once or twice, Shiro managed to sneak Keith aboard a completely not-Garrison-approved late-night flying lesson.

One of those flights, they found a nice spot on a nearby canyon ridge to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful sight, red and yellow and purple light flooding the cockpit. But the sight was nothing compared to how it felt when Shiro leaned over and kissed Keith.

He dreamt of Shiro often after that night.

 

****** 

 

He hadn't wanted Shiro to go to Kerberos. It was a stupid, selfish impulse on his part. For a pilot as young as Shiro to be put in charge of such an important mission was a great honor. Keith knew that.

It was just that Kerberos was so far away, and he wanted Shiro to be with him. 

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Shiro kept telling him. He said it with a smile and an easy laugh that made it almost possible for Keith to forget everything he knew about the galaxy and space travel and believe him. Almost. 

Keith always gave a weak smile back. 

After the launch, Keith passed the time wondering what Shiro’s journey must be like. He poured over the best space photography the Garrison had and tried to insert Shiro somewhere into their high resolutions. Had Shiro gotten a chance to watch the storms blowing over Jupiter? Did he take a moment to smile at the rings around Saturn? 

Did he think about Keith as he looked at the galaxy and saw a field of stars stretching as far as the eye could see?

At night, Keith tried to dream of stardust, but his mind kept conjuring images of what it would be like when Shiro came back: going for walks in the area outside the Garrison, Shiro talking about how wonderful the trip had been, only ever pausing to kiss Keith and run his hands over him.

Keith dreamed of that reunion so many times. 

 

***** 

 

Keith did not sleep the night he learned the Kerberos mission had been lost. 

 

****** 

 

Everyone was saying that the mission had been lost due to pilot error, but that was wrong, that was impossible, Keith knew it, it was a lie, how could they just lie like that to everyone -- 

Keith barely slept these days and when he did his dreams were a cacophony. The sight of Shiro’s ship as it lifted into the sky, bound for Kerberos. The calm expression the woman on the news had been wearing when she said the words that tore Keith’s world apart. The small smile Shiro always gave him whenever they were alone. 

It was hard sometimes to remember what was a dream and what wasn’t. It would have required, for a start, Keith to care about the difference between when he was awake and when he wasn’t. But that wasn’t important. Shiro was not with him, and that was all that mattered.

He walked around looking for a fight, and finally managed to get himself into enough for the Garrison to expel him.

 

****** 

 

Without Shiro, without the Garrison, Keith was well and truly alone once again. 

He wandered around a lot. He made a tour of abandoned buildings where he could sleep. Some of them didn’t have a roof. He could look up in the night sky and see the stars. 

He hated the sight. 

In the desert, he found a small, abandoned shack. It was falling apart by the time he found it. There was nothing around for miles. Well and truly deserted. Keith slept there one night and felt -- not quite at peace, but quieter, perhaps, than he had for weeks. 

He stayed at that shack. He hadn’t slept in the same building twice in a while. He felt a strange energy nearby. Keith wanted to explore it. At first, because it was something to do. But eventually he did become genuinely curious.

The shack had been barely inhabitable at first. Keith started to fix it up, mending it where it had fallen apart. By the end it might even have passed for a real cabin. And Keith no longer sometimes forgot to shower or caught himself staring off into the distance for several minutes at a time. Maybe, he found himself thinking, maybe he could pass for a normal person again these days.

The only problem was how big the bed in that shack was. It was far too big for one person. Keith didn’t like it at first. Hated it. But with enough time he got used to it. Perhaps it was not so bad, to have all that space just for himself. 

His sleep was still fitful, but at least he often did not dream. 

 

****** 

 

It only took a few weeks of investigating that strange energy in the desert for Keith to realize that he was toying at the edge of something so much larger than himself. But he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams meeting the Alteans, the battle with Zarkon, being a paladin of Voltron -- 

He could never have brought himself to imagine the reunion with Shiro. 

It would have hurt too much to imagine. 

And yet here Shiro was, safe, alive, somehow transformed in ways that even he did not know, but it didn’t matter, because he was here with Keith. 

Their first night together was in the cabin. Everyone else had gone to sleep. Lance had taken the bed, Hunk the couch, and somehow Pidge had managed to find a way to sleep upright in a chair. Keith knew his body was tired, could feel it dragging him down, but he was too wired from the events of the day to sleep. He looked at Shiro, and saw in his eyes the intensity that said he needed rest but would be taking none. Keith gave a small nod to the door. They walked outside. It had just started to get dark. The desert air’s bite was turning cold. 

It felt a little warmer when Keith drew Shiro into his arms and gave him a quick kiss. 

“I’ve missed this,” he said. “I’ve missed you.” 

They stayed out late that night, curled up next to each other on the ground, talking underneath the stars. Keith’s eyes grew heavy, but he did not want to sleep. 

Some part of him was too afraid that he would wake up and Shiro would be gone. 

They stayed up too late, and the next morning was the morning they discovered the Blue Lion and left Earth behind. 

Their second night together was on the Castle of Lions. Once he was confident that everyone else would be asleep, Keith had gone to knock on the door to Shiro’s room. Shiro had given a small laugh and reached up a hand to tuck an errant hair behind Keith’s ear. 

“Does it bother you?” he said suddenly, with a frown. 

There had been so much that had bothered Keith these past few months that at first he didn’t know what Shiro meant. But it was clear from the way his gaze fell and how he frowned what had caused him to ask the question. He meant his arm. His Galran arm. It had been warmer than steel when it brushed against Keith's forehead, but it was unmistakably not flesh.

“It is different,” Keith admitted. “But that's not a bad thing.”

Shiro did not look convinced, and Keith pressed on. “It’s not important compared to you being safe. To you being back.” 

They stayed up too late talking. Shiro kept telling Keith that he had to get back to his own room, but Keith only left when Shiro didn’t hesitate in running his Galran arm through his hair.

He slept so little that night he did not dream. The same was true for the next night. And the night after. But there is a routine to be found even when you find yourself suddenly on a strange alien spaceship, thrust into an intergalactic war. And when he found that routine, Keith dreamed of Shiro. 

It was not the Shiro he had known before, the gifted pilot. It was Shiro the Black Paladin, a survivor and a fighter. Keith liked them both. 

And, after a while, he would be confident enough that he had Shiro back that he would stop counting the nights since they had been reunited. 

 

****** 

 

Keith knew the other paladins dreamed of returning to Earth again. They varied in how they open they were in talking about it, but it was no great mystery. Lance wanted to see the beach; Hunk talked about how much he missed baking with his dad; even Pidge talked about how nice it would be to be home again with her whole family. Shiro did not talk about it openly, but once when Keith asked Shiro said he sometimes dreamt of Earth. 

“I think about,” he said hesitantly, almost self-consciously, “well, about the two of us in that little house had, alone in the desert. No war to fight. No one around to bother us.” He smiled as he spoke, and Keith found himself smiling too. “Why, is there something you’ve been missing about Earth? Something you’ve been dreaming about.”

“Not missing, not really, no,” Keith said. “Pretty much -- what you said.” The words came out too quickly. Even to Keith’s ears, it sounded like a lie. Shiro arched a single eyebrow but did not press the matter.

It hadn’t really been a lie. Keith had had some vague dreams of going back to Earth with Shiro. Maybe they could stay in that cabin. They could go anywhere. 

But recently those dreams had started to feel -- thin, somehow. 

When his dreams were vivid, they were always about the Galran Empire. He woke up fro those dreams in a cold sweat with his heart racing. He rarely remembered the specifics his subconscious had conjured for him. Sometimes he thought the Galran Empire was looking to kill him; sometimes he thought it was trying to recruit him. It was hard to tell the difference. 

He didn't tell Shiro about those dreams.

He certainly didn’t tell Shiro that in his dreams it felt like he belonged in the Galran Empire. 

“You fight like a Galran soldier,” Zarkon had told him. Sometimes, at night, just before he fell asleep, those words bounced around his skull.

 

******

 

Shiro was there when Keith found out that he had Galra blood. Shiro, the person he would have most wanted to keep the news from, was there. He found out at the same time Keith did that Keith was the enemy, that the blood flowing through Keith’s veins was of the same race that had destroyed Altea, conquered and enslaved most of the galaxy, captured the crew of the Kerberos mission, and experimented on Shiro personally.

Shiro didn’t say anything along those lines. Keith repeated the words in his head, but Shiro didn’t say anything like that. Shiro didn’t say anything like that when they had to go back to the Castle and tell everyone the news. He didn’t drew in his breath sharply like Coran did. His eyes didn't go wide like Allura’s did. 

“He's still the same Keith,” is what Shiro did say, in a pointed tone. No one had anything to say to that.

After a long moment, Keith finally muttered, “I’ve got some training to do.” But he didn’t make it to training; he stayed in his room instead. Sat there, lights on, head in hands. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting like that before there was a knock on the door. 

It was Shiro. Of course it was Shiro. Of course he didn't look surprised or disgusted or anything else that would have been appropriate to the situation. He looked concerned.

“Are you alright?” he asked, and kissed Keith when he didn't answer right away.

Shiro slept in Keith’s bed that night. He fell asleep easily. Keith had no such luck. He expected to be greeted by the same dreams as before. He was part of the Galran Empire, after all. It was only a matter of time before they came recruiting. 

But when sleep did find him, Keith didn’t dream about the Galra, or Zarkon, or even Voltron: he dreamt of the house in the desert, and what it would be like to share it with Shiro. 

 

****** 

 

When the battle was over and they went inside the Black Lion and Shiro had vanished, for a moment Keith didn’t even see the cockpit anymore. His vision was, for a brief, tantalizing moment, of the inside of that cabin in the desert. Shiro was there. Everything was fine. 

But reality came back to Keith quickly. His stomach felt twisted and tight and his mouth felt chalky. Other people were talking and talking, but Keith could not make out any words. He could not focus enough to make out any words. 

It took a minute for him to realize everyone was staring at him. He heard his name. No doubt they’d been saying it for a while now. 

“Keith,” Allura asked, “Are you alright?” 

Keith did not feel like himself now. He was someone who could walk and talk and pretend to be Keith, but he was not Keith. 

“Do you have any idea what might have happened to Shiro?” 

“Where could he have gone?” 

Keith blinked. The voices weren’t stopping. Keith couldn’t stand it anymore. He turned quickly to leave. 

“Where are you going?” Allura asked. 

“I need to --,” Keith started to say. “I need --.” 

To not be here. 

To not be anywhere. 

For Shiro to be here. 

“I just need a minute,” was what he finally managed to spit out. 

That minute ended up being in his room, where he could sit alone and let his thoughts suffocate him. He heard noises at his door and the unmistakable sound of people muttering about him just outside the door. The rest of the team must be worried, he knew. But he could not bring himself to act. They did not knock on the door. They left him alone, until eventually he fell asleep. 

It was not Earth that he dreamt about. It was not the Galra Empire. It was not the new family that he had found for himself with Voltron; it was not even his old, vanished family. 

He was in the Red Lion. The universe stretched before him, stars and planets and comets and so much more than he could ever have imagined. 

And somewhere out there was Shiro. He knew it. 

When he woke up, he gave a small sigh. It was not going to be an easy journey, Keith knew that. But he knew he would find Shiro.


End file.
